This week on Healing Hands, we meet Luján Pérez, a  artist, sculptor and woodworker whose pieces feel as if they’ve grown from the earth itself. Working from a converted barn in the Hudson Valley, Luján carves and constructs in dialogue with her materials. Honoring the cycles of life, decay, and renewal that shape both her art and her daily rhythm.

Below, she shares reflections on rest, creativity, and the way our hands hold the memory of everything we’ve made.

How do you warm up your hands (or mind) before working on your craft?

“Typically in my sketchbook. It’s an amalgamation of every terrible idea I’ve ever had — drawings from life, drawings I’d be too embarrassed to show my gallerist or my mother — and play-by-plays of how I’ll execute the work: measurements, plans, sketches.

That always gets me pumped to work, whether I’m in or outside of the studio.”

There’s a freedom in her words that feels familiar.  The way beginnings often start with imperfection, looseness, and play.

Who would you most like to high-five right now and why?

“This baby I have in the womb. I’m due in six days and can’t wrap my head around what’s about to happen. He’s who I’m rooting for.”

Creation, it seems, takes many forms from the grain of wood to the life growing within her.

How has your relationship to your hands changed over time?

“Aging forgives no one. I’ve been making woodcuts for a decade and a half, and I’m feeling it.

I used to be reckless in the printshop — refusing gloves for lack of tactility, washing my hands in a parts washer full of recycled mineral spirits. My bones are paying for it these days.”

There’s tenderness in this admission a reminder that even as our hands weather, their stories deepen.

What role does rest play in your creative process?

“I have an overly complicated relationship with productivity. In my twenties I decided rest and work existed on opposite sides of the spectrum.

It’s taken moving away from the hustle of a major city and turning an old barn into a studio to realize that rest is just as productive — and just as important — as work.”

A truth so many of us learn the hard way: creation requires stillness, too.

What’s a ritual (big or small) that keeps you grounded?

“Growing things. I’ve found it to be a beautiful balance to my studio practice.

The cycle of birth, life, and eventual loss in the garden every season is a constant inspiration — a conversation I have with myself and what I’m trying to convey in my work.”

Her connection to growth and decay mirrors the rhythm of her sculptures — alive, evolving, rooted in time.

What’s one thing you’d let go of if you could?

“Fear of failing before trying.

I had a professor who said he was happy not to be smart enough to talk himself out of making things. He warned me I was too smart — too rational.

Over time, I’ve realized I have two kinds of days: the days I make work and the days I don’t. And the days I make work are always the days I feel most human.”

A mantra worth holding onto for any maker.

What do you hope your work passes on to others?

“That life is too fragile and short not to live it as earnestly as possible.

That we all come from the earth, and we’ll all return to it.
I hope to convey moments of beauty, tragedy, and hope — to create a space where you belong.

I’ve always loved this sentiment:
Home? It’s the place you can never visit for the first time, because by the time it’s become home, you’ve already been there. You can never go home only go home again.”

Through her hands, Luján Pérez reminds us that artistry isn’t just what we make — it’s how we live. It’s the patience to let things take shape in their own time, the courage to rest, and the grace to begin again.

From her barn studio in the Hudson Valley, she continues to carve and nurture  proving that healing, like wood, responds best to care, attention, and touch.